


Marquise

by anti_ela



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Alternate Universe - Serial Killers, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-08
Updated: 2012-10-08
Packaged: 2017-11-15 21:34:21
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,209
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/531974
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/anti_ela/pseuds/anti_ela
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alastair keeps a book of flowers, and Lilith doesn’t question it.  She knows by now that there are some parts of him that are and always will be internal, and whatever meaning the petals hold for him would be lost if he tried to find words for it.  She accepts this.</p><p>Still, she does go through it from time to time when he’s not home.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Marquise

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thosefuckingangels](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thosefuckingangels/gifts).



> _They were sweet_   
>  _when I pressed them_   
>  _and retained_   
>  _something of their sweetness_   
>  _a long time.  
>  —from “Asphodel, That Greeny Flower” by William Carlos Williams _

Alastair keeps a book of flowers, and Lilith doesn’t question it.  She knows by now that there are some parts of him that are and always will be internal, and whatever meaning the petals hold for him would be lost if he tried to find words for it.  She accepts this.

Still, she does go through it from time to time when he’s not home.

There are usually a few flowers per page, and the rest of the entry is taken up with cramped writing and small watercolors depicting some part of the plant—the root system, for example, or how its leaves cluster.  From what she can decipher, he tends to list the Latin names for each plant, its common names, the conditions it requires, and which state it was he plucked it in.

Each entry is followed by a date and a pair of numbers.

The dates go back quite a while.  Sixteen years, in fact, and those flowers are pitiful things.  The petals are paper-thin, and many of them are falling apart.  One or two have even rotted, having not been properly pressed.  Had it been up to her, these pages would have burned long ago.  But he keeps them like he keeps few things, so they must be important.

Sometimes the numbers are missing, and in their place is some comment:  “unknown,” some say; or “by the mountain.”  Being that there tend to be several mountains in one place, she doesn’t quite see the point of this.

In any case, her boyfriend having such a pointless hobby wouldn’t intrigue her except that he keeps the book hidden.  This, naturally, makes her assign all sorts of meaning to the inane scribbling:  each flower represents a time he was bullied for liking flowers so much; he doesn’t realize people already know all these things about flowers and that no one cares; they’re tokens from his road trips and he doesn’t know cameras exist; they represent every girl he’s fucked; and on and on.

Until one day it clicked—the numbers were coordinates.

Her fingers grow cold, and the book slides from them.  Its binding cracks, being dry from age, but she does not stoop to pick it up once more.  Her mind is feverishly reciting the dates, the states, his road trips, the secrecy—one page per trip?—and all she can think to do is tear down the map on the wall and flatten it out over the bed.

Only now does she retrieve the thing, far more careless than before.  After an hour’s work, she has pins on all the coordinates available, and each trip has a piece of colored string connecting it.  After checking only a few of the dates against the locations, she knows.

She destroys the house looking for it, and at last she finds it in the attic:

Proof.

* * *

When Alastair comes home, he is holding styrofoam boxes filled with pad thai and spring rolls; the pad thai is spicy, like she likes it, but made with tofu, like he does. The spring rolls are shrimp because no one comes between Lilith and her questionably-sourced seafood, and by now he has come to accept this. In the crook of his left arm is a mass of greenery that could have once been called a bouquet.

No matter. Lilith doesn’t like flowers as much as he likes buying them for her.

In an inside pocket lying next to his heart is a smart blue box with a treasure inside. He has kept it there for a month now, and he does not need to take it out to see the simple white-gold band, the subtle details, the flawless diamond marquise; these things are pressed into his mind like petals.

 _Tonight_ , he thinks, with the wind whistling and the first frost all but promised, _might just be perfect_.

“Lils, I got us dinner,” he calls into the apartment.

“I’m in here,” she says. Following her voice, he enters the living room where she is sitting, back straight, hands steepled, gazing down at the table before her.

On the table is a box.

His box.

He stops, looks at her. Her face is neutral, calm, but he cannot tell (has never been able to tell) what that means. He droops into the seat opposite her, places the food to one side of the box, the flowers on the other. He scrubs his hands through his hair. His heart beats against the blue box, and he laughs.

Her eyes narrow, which makes him laugh harder. She waits. He says sorry.

She does not excuse him, and instead leans forward to open the box before her. From within its depths she pulls nylon rope, three knives of various sizes, a roll of black trash bags, a container of lye, two rolls of duct tape, three official-looking IDs, and a small moleskine. She sets these all before him, and when the box is empty she replaces the lid and moves it to the floor.

“Explain,” she says.

“I don’t know what you want me to say.”

“The truth.”

“Well, okay. I kill people. Have you called the cops?”

“No.”

“Why not?”

She stares at him, then picks up the flowers and throw them at him. “Fuck you.”

He plucks a lily from his shirt and offers it to her. She slaps it away.

“Don’t you fucking dare ask me any other stupid fucking questions, or I will call them. Understood?”

“Yes.”

“Yes, what?”

“Yes, ma’am.”

“Okay. Okay. So you kill people. What people, exactly?”

“What do you want me to say, Lils? That I only target people who really, really deserve it?”

“That would be nice, yeah.”

“Well, whose moral barometer am I supposed to fucking base that off of?”

“Alastair.” She leans forward.

“Yes, ma’am?”

“What the fuck did I say?”

“No stupid questions.”

“And what did you just ask?”

He doesn’t answer.

“Good boy. Who do you kill?”

He closes his eyes, trying to remember. “Just… people, I guess. Assholes. Maybe they’re not all assholes. I don’t know.”

She laughs, stands up, walks around the table. Standing in front of him, she tugs the end of his scarf until it coils off his neck; placing one knee to either side, straddles him. She straightens his collar, runs her thumb along his Adam’s apple. He shivers and she leans in, breathes in his ear: “No, boy. Who do you kill?”

“I don’t understand—”

She sighs, leans back. “Alastair. We’ve been together for two years. You’re not going to kill me, are you?”

“What? No!”

“And I didn’t call the cops, did I?”

“No…”

“So I kind of own you, don’t I? I mean, all this evidence, where anyone could find it…”

“In my closet under my little league trophies is not ‘where anyone could find it.’”

“I was cleaning. Not the point. Point is, I say jump, you say how high. Yes?”

He closes his eyes. “Yes. Ma’am.”

“So: who do you kill?”

Opens them, looking into hers. “Who do you want me to kill?”

She kisses his nose. “Good boy.”

**Author's Note:**

> based off the prompt "human!AU where Lilith finds out Alastair is a serial killer." written for thosefuckingangels. :')


End file.
